Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced a plan yesterday to canvass the entire federal
prison population for the first time to find inmates who committed low-level crimes and could be
released early.

The move, which expands a plan announced in January, is expected to generate thousands, if not
tens of thousands, of applications for clemency. It represents the Obama administration’s latest
break from the criminal-justice policies created to fight drugs.

Deputy Attorney General James Cole said yesterday that the department would consider
recommending clemency for nonviolent felons who have served at least 10 years in prison and who
would have received a significantly lower prison term if convicted under today’s more-lenient
sentencing laws.

“These older, stringent punishments that are out of line with sentences imposed under today’s
laws erode people’s confidence in our criminal justice system,” Cole said.

The Justice Department could not say how many inmates fit its criteria. But considering the
standards and the lengthy clemency-review process, civil-rights advocates said it was far more
likely that the number released early would be in the hundreds rather than the thousands.

The policy change is unlikely to make a sizable dent in the federal prison population of about
216,000 people. But it represents the most significant clemency effort since Presidents Gerald Ford
and Jimmy Carter offered amnesty to Vietnam War draft evaders.

Budget problems in the states have led local governments to reconsider their criminal-justice
policies, which have created large prison populations that are expensive to house and feed.

Since the late 1970s, the nation’s prison population has ballooned into the world’s largest.
About 1 in every 100 adults is locked up.

The new policy does not affect the roughly 2 million inmates in state prisons.

The clemency drive will rely on a partnership among federal prosecutors, public defenders,
prison officials, civil-rights groups and prison-reform advocates. Every inmate will receive notice
of the opportunity to apply for clemency and of the new guidelines in the coming week.

Prisoners who want to apply are eligible for free legal help from volunteer defense lawyers, the
Justice Department said.

The effort is certain to generate a crush of requests to a pardon office at the Justice
Department that has had a backlog of applications for years. Cole said he would temporarily
increase office staffing to handle the new requests.